As countries abandon nuclear power the world has seemingly lost, at least for the foreseeable future, any hope of economically producing large amounts of electrical power without a continuous stream of effluent being discharged to the atmosphere. Other essentially pollution free technologies such as solar panels, wind, geothermal, ocean thermal and ocean tide, while all important, fall well short of producing a significant portion of our present and future electrical power needs. These alternative technologies suffer from a variety of problems all resulting in higher cost per megawatt than conventional means. The United States Department of Energy has spent over $1 billion over the last ten years on solar power alone. At present solar power produces less than one percent of our electrical needs at a cost of approximately five times that of coal.
To be precise, the difficulty with present electrical power generation has much more to do with the fuel than the process. The vast majority of hazardous materials as well as greenhouse gases that are emitted from fossil fuel burning electrical power plants are result of the fuel. This is particularly true when the fuel is coal. While present regulations put restrictions on certain dominant pollutants other dangerous pollutants continued to be emitted with little or no control. These include but are not limited to radioactive material, mercury, boron, arsenic, cyanide, and chromium.
Therefore, there is a need for an alternative method of electrical power generation that uses fuel that is both economically efficient and environmental friendly.
Many attempts have been made to generate energy from renewable resources. Indeed, the goal of several projects has been to provide continuous energy from regenerative energy sources. The produced energy can be stored with universally understood energy storage devices, but can also be directly employed in industrial production processes. Certain selected system technology can be used in an advantageous manner because the individual processes can compliment one another or even depend upon one another. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,100,600 discloses a system with a floating or an anchored support structure with a plurality of energy converters for the regenerative energy sources ocean water, ocean waves, wind, and solar radiation. The most significant shortcomings of this system are that it must be installed in the ocean, at a significant distance from where most energy is used, and that large quantity energy storage is difficult.
German Patent Document 195 02 953, discloses a mechanical energy generator which combines wind energy, water energy, solar energy and biomass energy. An energy storage device is disclosed which collects the different types of energies in the form of rotational energy and this energy is converted by a generator into electric current. This device can be used on land as well as on the ocean. In principle, it is possible to convert basically any type of energy into rotational energy. In order to be able to use this energy, the storage devices with their generators must be operated in the vicinity of the supply network in order to be able to supply the current to the consumer. When connection to a network is not possible, a chemical energy storage must be employed in order to allow transport of energy to the consumer. Furthermore, with rotating masses, which receive a corresponding amount of energy, a complicated service and maintenance system is required and friction will cause a certain amount of loss.
Many have proposed the use of biomass as an energy source. Indeed, it is well known that biomass can be burned to generate heat that is converted into electricity. However, biomass has been used primarily as a supplemental fuel because no cost effective way has been found to supply sufficient quantities of biomass fuel to produce large amounts of electrical power. Furthermore, the biomass is typically garbage or other refuse and not material specifically created for fuel purposes.